Damaged Goods
by Mrs. Crocodile
Summary: Nobody ever really changes. Massive spoilers for 03x11—The Eclipse, Part Two.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Heroes or anything connected to it.

**Author's Note:** It's getting to be a bad habit the way I feel the need to write a continuance to every Sylar/Elle episode. But if you saw this last one, you know it needs to be continued, because that ending was not satisfactory for me.

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**Damaged Goods  
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Summary: Nobody ever really changes.

Spoilers Through: 03x11—The Eclipse, Part Two

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The hunger was consuming him, but he stopped. The cut went all the way across Elle's forehead. Sylar wanted so much to just look at her brain, to see how it worked, to take what she had. But he already had her power.

Once she realized that he had stopped, Elle's eyes fluttered open. He released her arm and rolled off of her. Her hands immediately went to cover her forehead.

Sylar sat up. After his mind had been so clear, it was now difficult to fight the hunger. He did not even want to fight it. He did not want to be a good person anymore. The only time in his life he had ever liked himself was when he was killing people, when he was strong.

But there was another part of his mind that was telling him the hunger was oversimplifying things. He liked himself when he was with Elle. Before any of this happened, when he had only killed one person, he had been happy with Elle. Until he found out who she really was, the hunger reminded him.

He looked around. They were in the middle of nowhere. He did not think there was any way he could save her. And if she going to die anyway, it might as well feed his hunger. There had to be a way though, he thought. With all that he could do, there had to be a way to save the only woman he ever really cared about.

He turned to look at her. "Let me see your head." She did not say anything. "Look, I'm sorry. But if you let me see it, maybe I can fix it. If you can fix watches, you can fix anything." He knew that sounded ridiculous, but it was something he had always believed.

Elle's hands remained firmly clamped over her forehead. "You can only... try to kill me so... so many times... before..." She trailed off.

"Before what?"

Elle closed her eyes. "Before I stop trusting you."

Using his power, Sylar pinned her hands over her head again. Looking at her now, it was getting easier to fight the hunger. He could still kill anyone else that he wanted to, but not Elle.

"Please don't kill me," she whispered.

Relying on the sparse medical training provided by watching television, Sylar came to a decision about what he was going to do. "This is going to hurt."

Elle started to cry, apparently thinking that meant he was going to kill her. He took a deep breath, because his planned treatment might actually kill her, but he had a theory that she could not die from her own power, no matter how great the electric shock.

He placed his finger at one end of her forehead and used electricity to create burns to cauterize the wound. Elle screamed throughout the entire process, but at least that told him she was still alive.

When she was able to move again, Elle gingerly felt her forehead. She sighed. "I don't understand you."

Sylar was going to respond, try to explain himself to her, but he saw that she was drifting to sleep. "I don't know if going to sleep is a good idea."

Elle knew he was right, but she couldn't stop herself. She had a feeling that once she fell asleep, she would not wake up again. She wanted to say one last thing to him, but she did not know what. She was not ready to forgive him, and she could not tell him that she loved him. She settled on just saying, "Goodbye," which really did not capture the sentiment she was feeling.

Sylar felt her neck for a pulse. She was still alive. He tried shaking her, but she did not wake up. He lifted her body using telekinesis and started up the shoreline with her floating next to him. He came across a small village. He took Elle in his arms and carried her the rest of the way. Looking at the buildings and signs, he quickly realized that they were in an East Asian country, probably Japan since it was Hiro who put them there. That was going to make things more difficult.

An elderly man saw them first. He said something in Japanese and pointed to a small house down the street. Sylar followed his directions and knocked on the door.

A younger man opened the door. "Are you a doctor?" Sylar asked, hoping the man spoke some English.

The man pointed to himself. "Doctor, doctor. Yes. Come in." He stood aside. "What happen?"

The front room of the house was set up as a rudimentary operating room. Sylar set Elle on the exam table. There was no partial truth he could tell that would make any sense. So he said, "I don't know. I found her on the beach like this."

The doctor waved him away. "Sit down. I look."

Sylar sat down. He watched as the doctor looked over her. There were no machines that he could see, so he was not sure how much good this was going to do.

The doctor unwrapped the bandage on her leg. "She has been shot and burned. I think she not wake up."

Sylar buried his head in his hands. There had to be something he could do. It occurred to him that someone out there must have the ability to heal others. Sylar pulled his phone out of his pocket. "I need to call someone." He showed the doctor his phone. "I'm just going to step outside."

The doctor nodded. "She will be here."

Sylar went outside and called his father, or the man he thought was his father.

Arthur did not greet him at all. "Do you have Claire?"

Sylar closed his eyes. Getting Claire, making his father proud, was the last thing on his mind. He wanted to cut through the explanations. "No. Elle is hurt. I need someone who can help her. There has to be someone who can heal her."

"Slow down. Start at the beginning."

Sylar sighed. "We were right there. We had our powers back, and Hiro Nakamura came and stranded us in Japan. Do you know of someone who can help Elle?" Arthur did not say anything. "I'll get Claire, as soon as Elle wakes up." He did not know if that was true. He still had the hunger, and he would just as likely go back to killing as soon as he knew that Elle was okay. He was just saying whatever would make Arthur co-operate.

"Adam Monroe had the ability of spontaneous regeneration. He could heal others by injecting his own blood into another person. It took him a long time to develop that abil--"

Sylar shut the phone before his father finished speaking. He went into the house. "She needs blood," he said to the doctor.

The doctor just looked at him like he was crazy. "I need to give her my blood." He hit the inside of his elbow to demonstrate. When the doctor still did not move, Sylar started looking through the cabinets to find a syringe. He found one and held it up. "Draw my blood."

"That not help," the doctor said.

"She was shot; she's lost a lot of blood. Give her my blood." He pushed the syringe into the doctor's hands.

The doctor reluctantly got out some tubing and wrapped a rubber tie around Sylar's arm. "This not help friend," he repeated, but he stuck the needle into a vein.

As the blood flowed out of Sylar's arm and into Elle's, he concentrated on everything he had learned about healing from Claire's brain. After a couple minutes, the doctor pulled the needle out of Sylar's arm. He placed gauze over the needle mark and taped it up. Even though it was unnecessary, Sylar allowed him to do it because it was easier than explaining. The doctor then patched up Elle's arm.

Sylar walked over to her. "Please, Elle, this has to work. Please don't die." He felt her neck again. There was still a pulse, but he could not tell if it was any stronger or weaker than before.

Suddenly, she opened her eyes. The skin on her forehead was still burnt, but at least she had opened her eyes. She stared up at him, not saying a word. The doctor pushed Sylar out of the way and shone a flashlight in her eyes. He said something in Japanese.

"Is she getting better?" Sylar asked.

"I don't know."

Sylar looked down at her. "Elle, blink if you can hear me."

Elle closed her eyes. "I can hear you," she said in a gravelly voice.

"I'm so sorry I did this to you. I have to leave. It's not safe for me to be around you." Elle did not respond, and her eyes were still closed. "Elle?"

"I can hear you."

He supposed it made it easier that she did not protest to his leaving her, and he had no right to think that she would after what he had done to her. Even now, after spending all that time and energy trying to save her, there was still part of him that longed to cut open her skull. He could feel the hunger rising in him again. He had to leave, or he would hurt her again. He started to leave, but he paused with his hand on the doorknob. He leaned forward and rested his head on the door. The doctor came up to him and patted him on the back. "You were right. She get better."

Sylar walked back over to Elle. "There's just one last thing I want you to know." He spoke softly so the doctor would not hear. "I'm leaving because I care about you. I don't want to hurt you, but I can't control it. I'm a monster, and I always will be. I don't get to be redeemed, Elle, not after what I've done. I don't want salvation anymore. I want power. I want to kill. And that's why I have to stay away from you. Because I love you."

She kept her eyes closed, and at first he was not sure if she was even still conscious, but then he saw a tear roll out of her eye. He turned to the doctor. "I have another phone call to make. I'll be right back." He walked out of the house and kept walking.

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**Author's Note**: I had the doctor speak like that because he lives in a small fishing village in Japan. It's not meant to be offensive. It would just be weirder if he spoke perfect English. Also, I don't want to know about any spoilers, but it really scares me that Kristen Bell is still billed as a special guest star.


	2. Five Months Later

**Author's Note:** I've been thinking a lot about, if I were a writer for Heroes, how I would get Sylar and Elle from the present to the future. This came to me last night, and I had to write it.

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It was another day before Elle was able to even sit up, and several more days before she was ready to leave the doctor's home. He was so worried about her and about why her friend had never come back. Considering the violent way she had been injured, she could not blame the doctor for worrying.

The people of the village took pity on her. They gave her meals and clothes for free, and when it was time for Elle to leave, a friendly fisherman gave her a ride to the nearest city. She promised him that she would be able to find her way home from there and sent him on his way.

Sitting there in a city where she did not speak the language, with no money, Elle realized how alone she really was. There was no one she could call. Arthur would not want her since she had utterly failed in her mission and since Sylar no longer wanted anything to do with her. She could not call Angela because she had shot Claire, and Noah hated her. She could not even go back to the village because she did not know where it was.

Because she had no identification at all, Elle had to go through the American embassy to get home, and it took another several days, filled with tearful recounts of how her boyfriend tried to kill her, to finally get all her papers in order. She had no idea what she was going to do when she got back to the States.

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**_Five Months Later:_**

Elle was sleeping in a studio apartment, which was all she could afford on her depleting savings. She was awakened by the sound of someone clearing their throat. She knew it either had to be Sylar or a rapist. She supposed if she had to choose one, she would rather it was a rapist, because she could deal with that, but she could not do anything to Sylar if he wanted to kill her.

She opened her eyes, and it was Sylar. Of course it was. Those rapist thoughts had just been wishful thinking. She rolled over and turned on the light.

He held his hands up in a non-threatening way. Although, he could make anything look threatening. "I didn't come to hurt you. I came to make things right."

"Go on," Elle said warily.

"I found someone who could heal others, and I... I took that ability from her. I just want to fix what I've done to you. And then I'll leave you alone."

He was looking at her forehead, and with good reason. She still had a long, ragged scar that made her look like Frankenstein and was so horrendous that bangs could not hide it. On top of that, her skull had never healed properly from being fractured, and she still got terrible headaches. The doctors said it was a miracle that she was not still in a coma. Hearing the story of Sylar's insistence on giving her a blood transfusion, she knew how that miracle had come about. Now he was offering her another miracle, but she was not sure how much she trusted him. Still, if he had wanted to kill her, why would he lie about it? Why wouldn't he just do it?

She touched her forehead. "It would be really great if you could fix what you've done."

He started toward her with his hand, the same way she had seen the Haitian do it so many times. She knew that this power would come from his hand, and she knew that it was her forehead that needed healing, but in that moment all she could think about was the Haitian. She did not know what Sylar would gain from erasing her memory, but she scooted back from him and blurted out something she had not meant to tell him. "I'm pregnant."

He pulled back his hand. "What?"

"I'm pregnant with your child. So if you hurt me, you'll be hurting your own child."

She had been lying on her side the entire time, specifically to hide her baby bump. Sylar now pulled down the blanket, and without it, it was obvious that she was telling the truth about her pregnancy. He sat on the side of the bed and laid his hand over her abdomen with a little bit of wonder on his face. "I wasn't going to hurt you," he said.

"I know, I'm just... I'm scared of you."

"Yeah, with good reason," he said absently. He was staring at her stomach, mesmerized. "Are you sure it's mine?"

She thought about lying, saying there was a fifty-fifty chance or something, but she saw something in him, something that made her think having a child could be a good thing for him. Besides he might rather see her dead than carrying another man's child. "I'm sure. But what if it wasn't? Would you kill it?"

He looked at her with sad eyes, Gabriel's eyes. "I wouldn't kill a baby."

"Would you kill me?"

He shook his head. "I just came here to make up for what I did to you."

"Would you kill the other man? Come on, he had sex with me. He impregnated me. Wouldn't that fill you with jealousy and rage?"

He pulled his hand away from her stomach quickly, as though he had been burned. "Is it my child or not, Elle?"

"It's yours," she said resignedly. "I just wanted to know if you still cared about me."

He laughed in amazement and stood up. "Oh, you are so twisted. In a lot of ways, we are so perfect for each other, but--"

She cut him off. "Heal my head." She sat up and grabbed his hand. She placed it on her forehead. "Heal me."

He sighed and closed his eyes. Elle felt a slight tingling, but that might have been her imagination. After only a few seconds, he pulled his hand away. She felt her head. "Is it gone?"

"Yes. So, I guess..." He looked at her stomach again. "I guess I should go."

She grabbed his hand again. "What? No! Don't leave."

She could tell that he did not want to go, but he said, "It isn't safe for me to be around you."

"Look at me." She pulled him down so that he was sitting next to her. "Do you want to kill me right now? Do you want to cut open my head, see what's inside, knowing that would kill your child?"

He hesitated. "Not particularly, but that doesn't mean--"

"You can heal me! Even if you tried to kill me again, you can heal me."

"Only if I stop myself in time. I wouldn't be able to bring you back from the dead. I've, uh, I've tested it." He looked a little ashamed.

She grabbed his face in both of her hands. "Then you'll learn to stop yourself. You want to be powerful? You want to be special? Then you need to learn how to control your own ability, Gabriel, rather than letting it control you."

She was not even thinking when she used his real name, but it seemed to have a profound effect on him. "How can you, after everything I've done, how can you want me to stay? How can you forgive me?"

"Back in Japan, you said that you loved me. If that's true, then you are the only person in the world who loves me. Maybe my father did, but he's dead. And now there's only you. You know who I am, you've seen me at my worst, and you still claim to love me. How can I turn my back on that?"

He looked away from her. "I do love you, Elle, but together we are so dysfunctional. I can't promise that I'll ever stop wanting to kill you. That doesn't sound like a healthy relationship."

She turned his head back so that he was looking her in the eye again. "So? I'm damaged goods anyway. We can't save each other, Gabriel; that's not how this is going to work. But that doesn't mean we have to be apart, alone because we're damaged."

"What about the baby?"

Elle looked down at her stomach. "We can't save each other, but maybe this baby can save both of us. Doesn't knowing that you're going to be a father make you want to try to change? If you're willing to try again, I'm willing to stay with you and help you."

He shook his head. "You make it sound so easy, but it won't be like that."

"Do you want to kill me now?"

"No. Stop asking that."

"How long have you been here without wanting to kill me? You're already learning to control it. I know it won't be easy, but home and family, that's what you said you wanted when you told Bennett that you wanted to be like him. I'm offering you home and family."

He closed his eyes. Elle knew he was on the brink of accepting her offer, of staying with her. The things she was saying scared her a little bit. She talking a bigger game than she believed in, but she wanted to believe. She continued, trying to get him to a point where he would say yes. "I love you, too. And I'm probably the only woman out there who could, knowing everything you've done. I'm the only woman who would be willing to clean up the blood for you, as long as it's not my own. I'm the only one who will stand by you no matter what you do, as long as you don't hurt our child. So you could be alone for the rest of your life, or have meaningless relationships with women who don't really know you. Or you can stay with me, have a family, have a woman who loves you for who you really are."

"But in those meaningless relationships, when I eventually hurt the woman, I won't care. Like with Maya, I always planned to kill her."

"Oh, you should know that if you do leave, I'll stalk you and kill any woman who dares touch you. Do you want to cut my head open yet?"

He laughed. "No. No, I don't.

Elle took a deep breath. "Do want to stay?"

His eyes shone, and they were still Gabriel's eyes. "I would love to stay."

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END

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**Author's Note: **I realize at this point, it's meaningless when I put end, but this really is the end. If anyone is wondering why Sylar's superhearing did not alert him to the fact that she was pregnant, according to a semi-official source (cited on Wikipedia), he doesn't have that anymore. When he got his powers back at the end of Season 2, he only got his original power and the telekinesis back. I don't know how that jives with the future where he can paint the future and blow up. But that's why he didn't hear the extra heartbeat.


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